Hi! How are things, and how are you doing?
In my last issue, Trees: Photographs, Sketches & Books (which you might enjoy), I mentioned switching up pARTake a bit. To recap. I'll still offer art, book, and food inspiration, but in a condensed version at the bottom of each issue, called Good Things Come in Threes, which provides an insider's view on what makes me tick. From here on, on the third Sunday of each month, instead of Monthly Vibes, I’ll offer more long-form writing that complements the themes in my memoir in progress. The remarkable thing about creating something is that it also provides great pleasure in breaking said thing.
I hope you and your loved ones are well. Thanks for being here. Tap that heart, drop a comment, or hit reply to deliver a private message. I love to hear from you.
Maureen xo
Decluttering
Since my Fall garage sale, I’ve continued to downsize closets and storage drawers. Recently, I also cleaned my art studio. Organizing and tidying calm my beehive mind. I've never been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) and am loath to self-diagnose, but if I had to guess, I'd say I am to some degree. You should see my kitchen utensil drawers. Anyway, after tossing old pens, dried erasers, bits of plastic, and mailing catalogs, arranging boxed markers next to colored pencils in drawers, and separating and stacking instructional and inspirational books, I was left with these “orphans,” pictured below.
My art studio space isn’t large, and after a few hours had passed, I was satisfied with my effort and the time spent. Funny though, I felt free but empty of creative energy. I’m not the superstitious type who thinks once I move things, I’ll lose the vibe, but that's kind of what happened. Granted, I've had a productive winter, with two stage theater productions that involved a new posh British accent, I’ve sold some art, and we've secured additional business in our home-based trucking agency. However, it’s not only the result of decluttering that's throwing me off; I can also attribute a restlessness to not having an art exhibit to work towards. I’m a pretty driven woman (ask anyone who knows me), and I crave change and a challenge, which prompted me to organize my studio. Now that my space is organized and fresh, the tidy countertops shout, “What’s Next?”
The rational part of my brain knows this period of needing but not knowing what’s next is a natural part of the creative process. After a period of intense creativity, the brain requires a reset phase, or pause. One of the most essential parts of creating is walking away, but that’s not always easy to do. It’s a learned trait. And giving myself permission to slow down and recharge is hard. I'm rarely content, or perhaps I’m just always striving to do something different or more, maybe both, even though I’ve been relatively content painting watercolor birds since the beginning of the year, right up to the point when I sold the watercolor peacock below a few weeks ago.
I’ve spent most of my life searching for something that will make me whole, and to discover it, I constantly ask myself What’s Next? I know many people dislike and even avoid change, but I'm drawn to it like the hummingbird migrates from Mexico to North America to feed at the sugar-water feeders every spring. This is a paradox, one that I navigate daily, sometimes even hourly. I know I'm not alone. What’s Next? is thrust upon us from all angles every day. It’s the paradox of our modern capitalist society. Faster, smarter, better, and for women, especially, slimmer yet with curves in the right places, with clear, flawless, youthful skin, nails, teeth, and hair, as if our bodies were meant to stay on a straight line instead of a continuum. (I digress, this is a topic for another issue!)
For the most part, my solution to What’s next? typically involves the outdoors. And so I took my pent-up restlessness to the flower garden, which also needed tidying. The air was cool with a slight breeze, and no thunderstorms in the forecast—a perfect garden trifecta. After the recent deluge of storms (which thankfully resulted in no flooding and no downed trees), the red clay soil was soft, yet not mushy, making pulling weeds and transplanting a snap. I cleared old growth from fifteen-day lily scapes, and dug up and transplanted several purple bearded Irises to a sunnier location. I cleaned the birdbath and mulched the beds, and when the sun dipped behind the white pines, I knew Cooper was close to ready for pick up—I'd dropped him at the Vet earlier in the day for his groom and a chest X-ray. You might know from Notes that he’s been wheezing lately.
My phone indicated the Vet had called while I was gardening. Cooper’s X-ray revealed an infiltration in his lungs, and his heart was enlarged (high on the normal side, he said). I grabbed car keys off the counter, panic pounded in my chest, but something pinched my butt, as if a tiny twig or thorn had found its way down the back of my pants in the space where butt skin kisses the back thigh. I scratched the area to try to release whatever it was and shimmy the annoying intrusion down my pant leg, more concerned with the voicemail about Cooper than whatever was in my pants. Then I felt the distinctive crawl of a tick, a sticky, scurrying sensation on my ass. If you’ve never felt a tick crawling on your skin, once you do, you’ll never forget it, especially where this particular tick was headed! Fear flooded my gut. I reached down the back of my pants and pinched the tick between my thumb and forefinger. Then, I ran to the kitchen sink and flushed it down the drain, running the food disposal for good measure.
Seconds later, in Larry’s office and not sure which was the more urgent message to share, I blurted iwasjustbitbyatickandthevetcalled while simultaneously pulling my pants down over my hips, and pointing to my left buttock.
“Take a picture!”
Larry turned his head slowly, looking amused and somewhat alarmed by my babbling and undressing. He reached for the remote control to press the mute button on the flatscreen, then picked up his phone to snap a picture.
“What about Cooper?” He asked, bending over to see what I was pointing at.
“Please! Just snap a pic!”
Once I examined the image of the bite, a raised red bump with swelling, I was satisfied I had gotten the entire tick. I tapped the phone to replay the voicemail message from the Vet. When the Vet finished saying that Cooper’s Grooming would be completed by four o’clock, I don't remember what else we discussed because a primordial fear for survival, aka PTSD, reared its ugly head. My already fractious mind tumbled to 2016 and a nanosecond later, to 2018. I inhaled and exhaled a sob.
In October 2016, we decided to install a tree stand and a turkey blind in our woods, allowing me to practice wildlife photography. Working amongst the vibrant golds, reds, and oranges felt exhilarating. Several hours later, the tree stand was secured to an oak tree, and the blind was situated on a trail naturally worn down by deer and turkeys. Once inside the house, we conducted a thorough check for ticks after stripping down in the laundry room before showering.
Within two weeks, my back began to ache, a dull, annoying sensation that felt like the pains of old age, except I was a fit fifty-five-year-old. A few days later, I walked Cooper up my neighborhood's less than quarter-mile hill and was out of breath. I chalked it up to allergies and, not for the first time, considered that I was pushing myself too hard. The following day, though, I crawled out of bed like an arthritic ninety-five-year-old woman as if somebody had placed red-handled clamps on every vertebra. By the time I got dressed, I was exhausted. Larry rushed me to the ED, and I was admitted immediately.
I was as close to death as I'd ever been, with a zero white blood cell count and pneumonia in my left lung. The Airborne Infection Isolation Room at the local hospital was on the same floor as the CCU unit, where at any given time of day or night, a loudspeaker announced Code Blue. Day after day, I was pumped with drugs and prodded with needles, drawing labs and administering medications. Doctors and nurses wore yellow head-to-toe PPE and questioned me about my health history, activities, where I had traveled, whether a tick had bitten me, etc. One afternoon, a kind nurse sat next to me and asked, “Are you sure you want to keep your DNR? You’re still so young.” Horrified, through tears, I said, “Yes, I want to be resuscitated.” I’d signed a DNR for when I was ninety-five, not fifty-five.
On the fifth day, a specialist in infectious diseases diagnosed me with ehrlichiosis, a bacterial tick-borne disease from the Lone Star tick. This particular species does not embed its head like many ticks; it injects its enzyme into its target and then falls off, which is why I didn’t know I’d been bitten. The doctor discovered two minuscule pinpricks on the sole of my left foot, between my toes. Once discharged with antibiotics, I was fully recovered within two weeks. I never used the turkey blind and only once climbed the tree stand for wildlife photography.
On my way out the door to pick up Cooper, I stopped in the laundry for an antiseptic wipe (for the tick bite) and then drove to the vet’s office, clutching the steering wheel. Cooper was only seven years old, and tears filled my eyes. In 2018, Cooper, a seven-month-old wire fox terrier, came into our lives, three months after Reagan, our twelve-year-old wire fox terrier, died suddenly. An artery had burst from the pressure of a tumor in Reagan’s abdomen, unbeknownst to us. Then, Larry had been traveling for work, and I was home weeding the vegetable garden, my back to the road. Reagan lay in the grass contentedly, knowing his boundaries in our fenceless front yard, but also on alert, waiting for Larry, or alerting me to danger from one of the neighbors, a man with bipolar disorder who didn't stay on his meds and would, on occasion, wander onto our property and become beligerent. Later that day in my office, Reagan made a horrible, grunting noise and stood as still as a statue. Seven hours later, his life ended on a hospital bed in Nashville, ninety miles from home. One of the terrible heartbreaks of my life was calling Larry, who was at the office in Jackson, and telling him our beloved Reagan was no longer with us.
Thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, Cooper and I began treatment the following day, which left me to contend with the clean, organized tabletops in my studio. Considering the trauma triggered by a tick bite and a voicemail, the What’s Next? of my art life seemed trivial, a non-issue. However, there’s also an existential What’s Next? that lingers in my life; it’s that something will happen—a “the other shoe will drop” kind of scenario. That’s how C-PTS (cancer-post-traumatic stress) affects my life. And that’s a topic for another issue, stay tuned.
Most aspects of life and its circumstances are beyond our control. As yogis remind us, restlessness is a sensation that we should lean into, recognize for what it is, and let go of, which gave me the foresight to open one of those journals I had stacked, grab a 2B pencil, and head outdoors…
Art News Update:
Good Things Come in Threes
Intermezzo by Sally Rooney is a stunning novel.
Asparagus Risotto is nothing new, but damn, it is SO good. Add shaved Parm (not grated) over the top for an unctuous, delightful Spring meal.
The Pitt (max) is an astounding series. S2 is coming in 2026.
Thanks for reading to the end. If you’re a first-time reader, please subscribe. All issues of pARTake are free.
Maureen xo
Stay curious. Stay safe. Make an impact.
Great work doing your cleanup up, but I was totally taken aback when I saw your last drawing , amazing piece of art.
What a story, Maureen! I hope you’re both better now.